ARC: Under Nameless Stars (8 page)

NINE

The next morning, she and Jules discussed developments over a hasty breakfast eaten in their cabin.

First, there was the appearance of Liam down in steerage. There was no denying how seeing him again had lifted her spirits. But what to do now? She felt sorry for him, forced to survive in the conditions of the lower decks. Should they try and smuggle him up to Jules’s rooms? Maybe he’d be more use moving about freely down there. No. It wasn’t fair to just leave him there. She’d have to think of something.

Then there was the mystery of what Zenn had just learned about her father. Even after she and Jules examined the problem from every conceivable angle, it still made no sense. How could a full-grown man be held in a starliner’s main sickbay and go unnoticed? Was she certain it was the
Helen’s
sickbay? It had to be, didn’t it? When the Skirni was talking on the com in the warehouse, it was clear his unknown accomplice was waiting for him up on the
Helen
. He also said he was going to bring Zenn up to the ship. It seemed logical to Zenn that they had taken her father there as well. And from what Zenn remembered from her linking with her abductor, the
Helen’s
sickbay had exactly the same layout, contained the same equipment, all in the same positions, down to the ornamental designs decorating the walls. But if this was true, then what had become of Warra Scarlett?

Any further dithering over what to do about either puzzle was prevented when the cabin’s door announced the arrival of a visitor. It was the little steward.

“Greetings,” Yed said. “I bring you several pieces of news.”

“Then you’d better come in,” Zenn said.

“I have found details on the passenger about whom you inquired. The guest in cabin 786 of deck 5 is registered under the name Pokt Mahg-Skirnik.”

“Yes, Pokt,” Zenn said. “That’s what Liam called him.”

“He has booked second-class passage through to Enchara. Also, I spoke with our ship’s physician. He has seen no red-haired Earth male suiting the description you gave me. Nor has he noted any visit from Guest Pokt to the
Helen’s
sickbay unit.”

This was disappointing. And perplexing. At some point in the not-too-distant past, the Skirni must have been in the sickbay with her father. But when? And why wasn’t he seen?

“Furthermore,” Yed went on, “it is my pleasure to convey salutations from Captain Oolo. He was very pleased to hear his Cleevus singing and in good health again.”

“I’m glad I was able to help,” Zenn told him. “Please tell the Captain it was no trouble.”

“As it turns out, you can tell him yourself.”

“I can?”

“Yes. You are both requested to accept Captain Oolo’s invitation to dine at the Captain’s table with him this very night, at the pre-tunneling party. It is a costume gala. This is a ship’s tradition of long standing. I can say you accept?”

Zenn’s smile froze on her lips.

“The Captain’s table,” Jules said. “This is quite an honor, I believe.”

“Yes, it is…” Zenn said, searching for a reason to decline. “But I really don’t deserve it, do I, Jules?”

“But you assuredly do,” Jules extended both mech-hands toward her. “You repaired the Captain’s favorite creature. And now a costume party. These events are enjoyable. I have attended them in the past.”

“Yes, please, it is most appropriate. To accept this invitation.” Yed’s tone now became fretful. “It would be your chance to tell our Captain of how satisfied the Bodines are with our services. And our good treatment of the unpleasant creature in the cargo hold. Captain Oolo would be most appreciative. Are you reluctant? The Captain will feel badly about a reluctance to dine with him.”

Yes. She was reluctant. What if questions were asked? What if she was revealed as a stowaway? Or spotted by the Skirni?

“I don’t know… I’m not very good… with crowds.” She stared hard at Jules. “You know, Jules, with lots of people.
Looking at me
.”

Finally, the dolphin caught on.

“Ah, yes, this is true,” Jules said slowly, thinking. “But it’s a costume party. You could hide your shyness. Behind a mask.”

Yed said, “Yes, indeed. I can provide this. The ship has a wide selection of costumes for guests. We stock a wide variety of maskings and ornamentation.”

Zenn racked her brain to formulate some other credible excuse, but nothing came.

Yed shuffled his feet, a pained look on his wide, rubbery face. “Our Captain Oolo will be most disappointed if you decline,” he said. Taking a step closer to her, he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “No one declines such an invitation. Please. It is not done.”

Later that evening, Zenn stood before the archway leading into the ship’s Grand Ballroom. Jules had stopped outside the hall to check his costume one last time. He surveyed Zenn’s outfit. “You are most appropriately attired. Shall we proceed?”

“I look ridiculous,” she said, staring down at herself. From inside the ballroom, music, voices and laughter spilled out into the corridor. It was too late to back out now. But why hadn’t she spent more time selecting her disguise? She didn’t even understand the origin of the obscure Earther legend about half-fish women who wore bikini tops made out of coconut shells. Now, on the verge of dining at the Captain’s table in front of hundreds of people, Zenn felt silly, oddly vulnerable and decidedly chilly.

“But you are an excellent and convincing mermaid. This is both festive and exotic,” Jules told her tactfully.

“I feel like a genetic experiment gone horribly wrong,” she said, picking irritably at the bulky sequined-cloth tail that tapered down to her ankles and made walking almost impossible. The costume’s long black wig concealed her hair effectively, though, and the sea-shell-encrusted mask covered most of her face.

Jules ignored her complaint and fussed with the belt holding the scabbard of his sword. His pirate costume included a long red velvet coat stained with gunpowder splotches over a peach satin shirt with clouds of frilly lace sprouting at neck and wrists. One mech-hand had been replaced with a large plastic hook, and his mech-legs sported thigh-high synth-leather boots. A plumed, tri-cornered hat perched jauntily just behind his blowhole. The only distracting element was the gray tail flukes extending out between his coattails.

Why couldn’t
you
be the mermaid? she thought irritably.
You’re already halfway there…

“You are forlorn,” Jules said. “Is it due to our conversation before? About us leaving your friend Liam Tucker in the unhappy situation of the steerage decks?”

“I should’ve found some way to contact him today. I told him I’d go back down to see him.” On the other hand, keeping her mind on finding Warra had kept her mind off worrying about Liam.

“But we could not proceed to the steerage level undetected without the assistance of the steward Yed. And he was otherwise engaged in duties all the day long. It is not your fault.”

“But he’ll think I forgot.”

“We will arrange to see Liam Tucker tomorrow. And you can explain your failure as a friend then.” She gave him a “thanks a lot” look. “Come. We’ll be the talk of the party.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she said. But there was nothing to do now but plunge in and make the best of it. The truth was, she still felt a little giddy from her discovery about the sickbay. And even if she had no immediate solution to her father’s whereabouts, at least this new clue gave her something concrete to hold onto. She peered into the hall full of chattering partygoers and took a deep breath.

“Are my coconuts straight?”

“Entirely. Let us go in. This will be… fun.” He offered her his arm. Smiling at the dolphin’s oddly comforting mimicry of human customs, Zenn put her hand on his metalloy arm and they waded into the noise and motion of the ballroom.

The sight that greeted them inside the spacious hall made Zenn immediately forget about her costume. The Grand Ballroom was vast, with a tall ceiling capped by a faux stained-glass dome. The room held dozens of tables with ornate centerpieces and individual nametags for each place setting. At the far end of the hall a single long, linen-draped table sat on a raised platform. Swirling around the tables were scores of passengers in varying degrees of flamboyant disguise, all talking and laughing as they hunted for their nametags. Flower garlands and streamers hung from the ceiling. In one corner was a quartet of musicians – two human females with violins, a young Procyon male bowing a cello and a tall Sirenian coleopt, all four upper arms playing a double-necked bass viol. They were playing old-fashioned waltz music, but it was barely audible amid the guests’ talking and laughter. The sight of the coleopt brought to mind the hulking insectoid who’d confronted her down in steerage, and then made her miss Hamish and wonder how he was getting along without Liam to help out with the cloister’s never-ending list of chores.

The boy, his dark hair worn long on one side in the Procyoni fashion, sparked memories of Fane Reth Fanneson, the Procyon youth who Zenn had first met several weeks ago at the cloister. Fane was an under-sacrist – a sort of chamber assistant to a starship’s Indra Groom. He was on Mars to pick up the whalehound owned by the royal family of the Leukkan Kire and transport the huge beast to its new home in one of the Kire’s planet-wide nature preserves. Zenn and Fane hadn’t exactly gotten along. They’d argued about the Procyon’s spiritual beliefs – or, as Zenn would have it, Procyon superstitions. She wondered if Fane might even be at the party but, after considering the possibility, decided it seemed unlikely. He wasn’t exactly the costume ball type.

Here and there, Gliesian waiters and waitresses trotted among the partygoers, proffering trays of drinks and appetizers. Zenn took a glass of punch off one of the passing trays, and Jules helped himself to a tall mug of frothy ale.

“Ahoy and avast,” he declared as he clinked his glass against Zenn’s and downed his drink with a flourish.

“If you say so,” she said doubtfully, taking a sip of punch and scanning the scene. Humans and Asents of all sizes and body shapes paraded past – a Reticulan, its great bulk draped in a fairy costume complete with little wings; a colonist woman dressed as what seemed to be a zombie ballerina; another human with the uniform, helmet and muon-pick of an asteroid miner. Some unidentifiable short being – a Skirni? – buried beneath the stuffed tentacles and multiple eye-pods of a Kiran millivipe almost ran into her, swerved at the last second and veered back into the mass of revelers.

A brilliant red dinosaur-like outfit teetering atop two pairs of double-jointed insectoid legs wobbled past, with two voices inside offering muffled apologies as they bumped into those in their path. Whatever they were meant to be, Zenn decided they were enjoying themselves.

“Look there,” Jules said, excited, pointing to the far exit. “A Skirni. Is that the one you seek? Is that this Pokt person?”

Zenn’s pulse rate raced at the thought. The squat little alien who entered the hall was dressed as an Earther circus clown, complete with baggy yellow pants, floppy shoes and a red, bulbous nose. The effect was vaguely sinister. But no. It wasn’t Pokt.

“It’s Thrott,” Zenn said. “The one you were gambling with before. See behind him? His slave?”

“Yes. My mistake.”

It appeared for a moment that Thrott had spotted Jules. Had he recognized Zenn in her costume? If so, he didn’t acknowledge the fact. A moment later, both he and his slave vanished into the milling throng of guests.

At the nearest table, Zenn’s attention was drawn to a pack of Alcyons. They were squabbling over who sat where. Their gangly lizard forms were all cloaked in identical rodentlike costumes, their pointed snouts and flicking tongues sticking out of fuzzy-eared hoods. Zenn wondered if they thought it humorous to dress as their own prey. It struck her as kind of creepy.

She was about to ask Jules his opinion about this when one of the Gliesian waiters turned around to offer them appetizers. It was Yed.

“There you are.” He seemed relieved they had shown up. “The Captain is eager to meet you. And also, I can confirm that I relayed the communication to Mars which you gave to me. It was sent off by the ship’s comm officer this same hour.”

Now that the
Helen
had moved well beyond Mars orbit, Zenn had decided it was safe to let Otha know what she’d done. It would be too late now for her to be sent back.

“Thank you, Yed,” she told the steward. “I appreciate your help.”

“It is my honor. Please…” He gestured to a small circle of guests standing near the central raised platform. “This way.”

In the circle’s center stood a tall human male in a dazzling dress-white uniform. Broad-shouldered, his craggy, weathered face wore a close-cropped white beard that perfectly complemented his sparkling blue eyes. He was every inch the ideal ship’s officer. In fact, he looked more like a cartoon of a Captain than the real thing. As she approached him through the crowd, Zenn saw that the man’s entire body shimmered with the minute, telltale static of a personal holo-projector image.

“Guest Bodine, Guest Vancouver,” Yed said eagerly, “may I present Captain Yoolis-En Oolo of the Lumiliner
Helen of Troy
.”

“A pleasure. Glad to have you both aboard.” The Captain spoke in a deep, husky Earther drawl as he extended a hand for Zenn to shake. Zenn was certain it wasn’t his real voice. And the hand she shook clearly wasn’t human. Beneath the holo-projected pixels, her hand was gripped by what felt like thin, bony digits with leathery skin and small, sharp tips – a bird’s claw? “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate what you did for my Cleevus. She’s never sounded better! You’ll hear for yourself later tonight. She’s doing excerpts from Tlanpoh’s ‘Ecstasy of the Hatchling Pool’. Do you know it?”

“Um, no, sorry.”

“An operetta. Gliesian, actually. Selected in honor of the
Helen’s
indispensable stewards.” The Captain rested a hand on Yed’s shoulder. “Especially this one.” Yed’s smile threatened to overflow his cheeks. “It’s thanks to you and Yed that my little mudlark is able to show off her talents tonight. You’re obviously an exovet who knows her fungal-animoids. Where did you study, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“The Ciscan cloister, near Arsia City,” she told him. But before she could explain she wasn’t a full-fledge exoveterinarian yet, they were interrupted by a high, piping sound like a tin whistle.

“The signal for dinner. We’d best head to the table,” the Captain said. “You’ll be on my left.” He gestured, and Zenn realized the Captain’s table was the one set up on the raised platform. She wished yet again she’d made a more understated costuming choice as she hiked up her awkward tailpiece and struggled up the steps to take her seat.

Glancing out at the room, her attention was drawn by something approaching through the milling crowd. It proceeded toward them with an unusual bobbing movement. It took Zenn a moment to realize it wasn’t a costumed passenger she was seeing, but something much more interesting.